Mayor Zohran Mamdani surrounded by Muslim men incarcerated at the Rikers Island jail facility, where he prayed and shared an iftar meal.
As New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has been embracing his Muslim faith amid Ramadan, he decided to break his religious fast with inmates who share his faith in New York's notorious Rikers Island jail, calling it "one of the most meaningful evenings" he's had as mayor.
Although Mamdani has visited Rikers Island in the past as a state legislator, this marked his first visit as mayor of New York City.
Shortly before arriving, he reiterated his pledge to shut down the jail and have the city absorb the incarcerated population into its borough-based jails. He also hinted at plans to hire a facilitator to expedite those plans.
"This is me just being a Muslim New Yorker," Mamdani said during the visit to Rikers, according to NPR. "There are some for whom that is a political act."
Mamdani was joined during the visit by Yusef Salaam, a member of the so-called "Central Park Five" who were exonerated of a 1989 rape and assault. Salaam currently serves as a member of the New York City Council.
Social media erupted after Mamdani's X post, with many critics questioning his decision to visit inmates at Rikers, which is notorious for its violent criminals.
Mystery novelist Daniel Friedman, who according to his bio on Macmillan Publishers' website, lives in New York City, noted, "You have to be an absolute monster to be sent to Rikers Island these days."
"Offenders on Rikers all have long histories of doing things so horrible that even the woke, pro-crime judges and prosecutors in NYC don’t want to be responsible for what they’ll do if they let them go," Friedman added.
Moshe Hill, a long-time Long Island resident and candidate for the Nassau County legislature, agreed with Friedman.
"Criminals in prison are just ‘New Yorkers in custody,’ according to Mamdani. Why are they in custody? You don't go to Rikers Island for nothing!" Hill quipped.
"Mayor likes to hang out with the people who victimize us. F---ing ridiculous," Newsmax's Rob Schmitt posted on X.
Meanwhile, Emmy-Award winning producer and columnist Daniella Greenbaum Davis made her own post, asking the New York City mayor if he had also visited the victims of the inmates he was meeting with.
"Visiting people in jail is admirable but just wondering if you've also visited their victims / the families of their victims?" she questioned. "Seems like there is a bizarre progressive determination to invert victimization I can't quite understand."
Among Mamdani's celebrations during Ramadan was an iftar, or a daily fast-breaking, at the Museum of the City of New York. That also triggered some responses, including from a former college football coach and lawmaker, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.,
U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama
Tuberville shared a photo of Mamdani at the iftar alongside a photo of the Twin Towers on fire after planes hit them on Sept. 11, 2001. "The enemy is inside the gates," Tuberville captioned the post.
Tuberville has faced backlash over the post, but the GOP senator stood firm and defended his social media post.
"I just go by his rhetoric," Tuberville said.
"He’s made a lot of statements about his stance with Islam and radical Islam, all the things that go along with what he preaches every day. And I’m just kind of repeating what he’s saying," the senator told D.C. News Now’s Reshad Hudson.
"We don’t need a division in this country. We need everybody to go with the Constitution, understand we have moral values. And if we all stick with those — I don’t care if you’re Muslim or Catholic or Baptist, it makes no difference," he continued.
He added, "We need to make the country better; we don’t need to divide it. That’s what he’s doing in New York."
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